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In his eight full years as the recipient of endless vile, often-delusional slander, President George W. Bush rarely grumbled, much less counterattacked his tormentors. Yet before he completed his first week in office, President Barack Obama  a dedicated disciple of Saul Alinsky, who is to left-wing radicalism and social agitation what Karl Marx is to communism  declared war on Rush Limbaugh.

This was a calculated move by a man who professes to be open to all ideas but apparently brooks no dissent. He not only does not tolerate dissent well but also really doesn't even like to be questioned, as we saw during the campaign, when he accused the normally fawning press of grilling him for merely asking a follow-up question. We caught another glimpse of this last week, when he showed irritation at the White House press corps for daring to ask him a policy question after he had decreed that the sole purpose of his visit was to press the flesh.

But Obama's effort to target Rush is not just his ego at work. He has begun a full-court press to advance his extreme left-wing agenda and was angling both to garner enough Republican support to insulate himself against future accountability for failure and to validate his self-styled image as a bipartisan uniter.

That's why he invited a group of Beltway conservatives for dinner, in a move reminiscent of Hillary Clinton's "listening tour"  as if discerning observers believe that listening, as opposed to projecting an image of openness, was either Clinton's or Obama's purpose. That's why he surrounded himself with big-business CEOs as he unveiled his misnamed "stimulus" package. That's why he often throws meaningless, abstract bones to conservatives in his speeches while having no intention of diluting his specific concrete liberal policies.

Obama is savvy enough to realize he can't eliminate all dissent. But he's enough of an Alinskyite to know that marginalizing and demonizing his strongest opponents could intimidate the fainthearted into supporting or withholding criticism of his policies and increase his chances for success.

Perhaps Alinsky would couch Obama's strategy in different terms, but it is essentially a divide-and-conquer approach. Make no mistake: The goal is to single Rush out and pick him off.

So Obama is trying to parlay his extraordinarily high approval rating to lay a foundation for his shock troops in the press and the party apparatus to discredit and eventually compromise or silence Rush.

As if in conspiratorial lockstep, the media are dutifully responding with round-the-clock distortions and deceitful context manipulation of Rush's clearly articulated statement that he hopes Obama's socialist blueprint for America fails, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is circulating a petition denouncing him. These are part of their larger goal to emasculate Rush and other conservative radio hosts through the Unfairness Doctrine.

Unhappily for them, their plan has backfired so far, as it obviously led to a counteraction, which, in turn, arguably contributed to the consolidation of Republicans in unanimous opposition to Obama's trillion-dollar mega-pork scheme.

But this is no time for Republican gloating  obviously. Obama is far from dispirited or deterred. He has only just begun. His plan did, after all, pass the House with solely Democratic votes. It has a good chance to sail through the Senate, as well.

For those on the right who still cling to the fantasy that Obama is a bipartisan centrist, I refer you to his recent statement that FDR did not do enough by way of government spending to end the Depression, his decidedly pro-abortion executive order and pronouncement celebrating Roe v. Wade, his Web-documented commitment to the radical homosexual agenda, his announced closure of Gitmo and termination of enhanced interrogation techniques, his planned discontinuation of missile defense systems, his actions on carbon emissions and fuel efficiency in deference to the global warming hoax, his shameless apologies for America to the Muslim world, his arrogant carving out of exemptions for his own staff and appointees from ethical rules he is now otherwise imposing, his groundwork to shut down political criticism, and his government-expansion-on-steroids, non-stimulus pork bill.

The inevitable explosion of federal debt this legislation would cause is reason enough to oppose it, even if it were likely to stimulate the economy. But even some liberals are disputing its potential to stimulate. The hastily crafted bill, with its corrupt funding of ACORN and other favors, is a disgracefully irresponsible effort to expand the public sector, diminish the private sector, empower the autocrats, and further divest us of our individual liberties  all at the expense of present and future generations.

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David Limbaugh, a columnist and attorney practicing in Cape
Girardeau, Mo. Comment by clicking here.

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